Inside Look From a PGA Tour Event

This past week I had the incredible opportunity of caddying for my very good friend and the best player I have met, Tobias Jonnson, in the 3M open in Minnesota. This is the penultimate tournament of the regular season on the PGA tour so I got a unique look into guys fighting to keep their card or improve their position in the FedEx cup point standings. Because of this, it is a tense week. I want to share my journey of getting there, as it was an eventful one, as well as what the week was like and the things I learned from being there.

Tobias and I have known each other for 3 years now and have played a lot of golf together having played at Mercer with each other. We have qualified countless times for Mercer tournaments together and have played numerous practice rounds so I know his game very well. I caddied for him before in a large amateur event called the Jones Cup Invitational and we were a successful pair. I was honored that he would ask me to caddy for him in his PGA tour debut. He got a sponsors exemption into the 3M open through winning one of the largest College tournaments in the country, the Augusta Haskins Award Invitational presented by Valspar. I have known for a few months that I would caddie for him so I wanted to really prepare and make sure I got the most out of the week for Tobias as well as for myself to observe and ask questions to see how I can get to the PGA Tour. As far as things I observed and learned, there are numerous items that I will discuss later in the letter but first I want to highlight some of the key stories from the event.

Travel

The software update that affected the airlines was in full effect when I was supposed to fly up to Minneapolis. My plan was to fly in Monday afternoon so that I could be there with Tobias for his Tuesday and Wednesday practice rounds. That was not the case as I had 4 flights cancel on me on Monday including the last flight out to Minneapolis 20 minutes before we were supposed to board. I got extremely lucky and found a flight attendant that did not have a 50+ person line waiting to talk to her and was able to reschedule to the 7 am flight out of Atlanta to Chicago, then connect from Chicago to Minneapolis and get there in the afternoon. This meant that I slept in the airport. The amount of people in the airport was astounding. There were more people stuck there overnight than are there on a typical day. There were so many people spending the night in the airport that the staff could not clean the grounds and had not cleaned them in days and it showed. I talked to a lady who had been stuck in the Atlanta airport for 3 nights and would not have another flight for 4 more days so her family was driving down from where she lived in Wisconsin to pick her up and take her home because she was completely out of money and had no way of even buying food. Luckily, I made it all the way to Minneapolis on Tuesday and was able to caddie for Tobias on his back 9 of the practice round, even if it was on 2 hours of sleep and probably smelling pretty bad. My bag did not come for another 2 days but I was able to wear Tobias’ brother and swing coach, Marcus, clothes for the practice round and then made a Target run in order to get me through until my clothes came.

About the Course and Facilities

The course for the 3M was TPC Twin Cities. It has hosted the 3M open for over 5 years now. The course setup and conditions were unreal. Bentgrass fairways, greens and rough was marvelous and the course layout was visually intimidating with plenty of risk reward around. The rough was extremely penalizing and very difficult to read the lies to figure out how the ball would react, so hitting fairways was a must. The greens were rolling at a 12.5 stimp (fast) with every green being a table top set up with false edges on all sides. The wind was very strong, 10-12 mph with gusts up to 18 both days so picking clubs and targets was difficult as most holes had a cross wind. The superintendents did not like that the scores were as low as they were last year so they wanted to make the setup more demanding to find the person who was truly playing the best golf. They accomplished that feat.

The hospitality for players and caddies was the equivalent to a 5 star resort. Breakfast, lunch and dinner served every day Monday-Sunday. Meals included steak, halibut, stuffed chicken, hamburger bar, and many more. There were unlimited drinks of any kind, alcoholic and non-alcoholic, as well as a smoothie bar throughout the whole day and an omelette/ made to order egg bar every morning. The locker room was the coolest part to me. Being around all the guys seeing how they handle the pressure and prepare for a round taught me a lot. You get to see equipment that is actually useful and see how meticulous caddies are about their players clubs. On Sunday, you may have seen Max Greyserman playing Ping Pong in the locker room while waiting to see if he was in a playoff. Having a Ping Pong Table in the locker room was very fun and really cool. There was also a caddie locker room where all players and caddies went to get massages and stretch out before and after play. I did not partake but I can imagine after playing for a few weeks in a row you would have to spend time stretching.

The practice facilities were perfect as you can expect with range balls being whichever type of ball you are contracted to play. Tobias plays Callaway Chrome Tour balls so that’s what we would grab all week. These are also the balls you take over to the short game facility. I cannot imagine the amount of sorting the volunteers have to do each night to separate them all correctly. During the practice round, every company you can think of had their tour van stopped there where the players can get their clubs replaced or fixed or test new clubs. Tobias got a new set of wedges from Callaway since they just got their OPUS wedges to the tour guys. Having fresh wedges is very helpful when playing on fast greens in order to control spin and know that you have the best possible chance of hitting a good shot and getting a good result. The putting green was by far the best part during the practice rounds. Every major putting company had bags full of putters sitting next to the putting green ready for any of the pros to try. If a player wishes to use one, the player can just take them. Sadly, with my delayed flights, I missed most of the companies putting their putters out as they were there on Monday and Tuesday but there were plenty still there on Wednesday for me to look at.

The Rounds

The practice rounds are very relaxed for the players but are the most work for the caddies. Numerous caddies go out and map out greens and tee shots without their player in order to insure that they are doing their job properly. During the practice rounds, the caddies map out possible pin locations (they give you the pins for last year but do not mark the ones for this year) and make it as easy as possible for the player so that they can properly get a feel for the course.

During tournament rounds on the PGA tour, players are not permitted to have rangefinders. There were numerous times that Tobias and I caught ourselves reaching for the rangefinder. Even without the rangefinder getting yardages was not as weird or hard of an experience as I thought. The tournament gave us a very detailed pin sheet location for each round. The numbers on the sprinklers went to the front edge of the green so with the pin sheet I was able to add the distance to the number on the sprinkler to get a yardage. Tobias, being a Swede, made it a little harder as he works in meters so thinking about yardages was a little off for me. I had him write down his stock yardages in meters and I used a yardage book printed in meters to avoid lengthy conversations. It was still weird to look down at a sprinkler and see a number and then have to convert the number to meters.

We were one of the last tee times on Thursday which is an undesirable tee time because of green damage. Fun Fact: the PGA Tour is the only place where players can still wear metal spikes and I understand why now. They absolutely chew up greens and make it very difficult to putt. Luckily they changed the rule a few years ago to where you can tap down spike marks. I cannot imagine how bad it was before that for players and how many tournaments and careers were changed because of tee times that were late with chewed up greens. I would have to talk with one of the players who uses them to understand why they are still wearing spikes as I don’t see how they can give you that much of an advantage. It must have some advantage as there were plenty of players wearing them. The wind was blowing hard all afternoon and was a cross-wind most of the day which made picking out targets and committing to them challenging. Tobias battled hard and finished with a 1 over 72. My bag still had not arrived from the airport so I was wearing one outfit up until this point. I finally I got my bag after the round completed on Thursday.

Friday’s round there was a cold wind from a similar cross wind direction. The greens were in better shape since we were in the morning but the cold strong breeze made picking clubs that much more difficult. Not being able to convert birdies or leaving ourselves in bunkers that were difficult shots, left us in an undesirable position. Nonetheless we really enjoyed being inside the ropes. I was able to give out golf balls to 3 young kids. Seeing the reaction on their faces makes you realize the position that you are in. I looked at Tobias on the first tee on Thursday and said “This is what we’ve been dreaming of since we were kids, getting to this stage, so let’s soak it all up” and I believe we did that. Even though we missed the cut and could not play on the weekend, we learned that Tobias’ game is good enough to be on tour and we both learned many things that are very valuable for the future.

What I learned

• Caddies are invaluable in tournament play. Having a caddie like Rico Hoey’s (one of the players we played with the first two days) caddie, Brian, can be the difference in making the cut or missing it. A good caddie does not just carry the bag, he is the level headed guy who tells you the best play for each shot and has your back under stressful situations. A great caddie knows what to say and when to say it. Watching Brian navigate coming down the stretch on the cutline with Rico made me realize how valuable they are. Following a bad tee shot on the last hole, Brian told Rico where to hit it when Rico was feeling the pressure and they were able to successfully get out of a very bad situation to get in on the cut number. I believe that Rico would have missed the cut without Brian being there because of the emotion that he had behind each shot and Brian was able to level him out and get him into the clubhouse.

• Carrying the Tour staff bags is heavy and hard work. Caddies have to replace divots, clean clubs, clean balls, rake bunkers perfectly, pull the flag stick and get yardages all to keep their player calm and focused. They have to let their player vent to them and only offer advice at the correct time, which is different for each player. I asked another caddie for advice before our first round and he jokingly said “just keep up.”

• Having a pre-shot routine for mental game and physical game is more valuable than you can ever imagine. Playing on the PGA Tour there is more pressure than anything I have experienced. Having cameras, fans, family, friends, agents, sponsors, caddies, and the rest of your team all cheering for you is a blessing but also a lot of pressure. If you do not have a way to get into “your bubble” as Rico put it, you will not be able to perform. I watched Jhonatthan Vegas very closely on Saturday when he took the lead of the event. He was playing on a medical exemption and had two weeks to perform to keep his job and he was the most relaxed guy in the field. Walking down 14 he had a group of 10 drunk guys yelling at him and camera crews in his face his whole walk and he was not even phased. He went through his routine and hit his next one close for another birdie. I also saw him in player dining and the practice facilities that week and he was just as calm. Being a Christian, we have an advantage on this front. We know that if we prepare as well as we can, the rest we turn over to God and he takes care of it. He has a plan for us and that can give us that ultimate peace that you need.

• Speed on putting is more vital than I realized. Everyone pays attention to speed on long putts that are more lag distance. Those are important but I am talking more about the 10-20 footers. The guys I watched had great speed on those. Most people get their read and then try and force the ball in the hole with very inconsistent speed. They get lucky by under-reading the putt and hitting it hard and it goes in or sometimes matching them up on accident. The guys on tour had very consistent pace on every putt. They all finished with pace to end up within a foot past the cup. This not only makes the hole a lot bigger allowing for lip-ins but also makes your reads more consistent. Next time you go and play and think you misread a putt, look at your speed and see if it was actually a misread or if you hit it with the wrong pace that caused the putt to be offline. I noticed that my speed was not as good as I thought as I tried to force the shorter putts in the hole by hitting them with more pace. I would get lucky on some and make them but miss others even when I had the proper read.

• Understanding your body and recovery might be the most important thing for a PGA Tour player. Rico told me that he was playing on his 7th week in a row. Playing that much golf and traveling that much takes a large toll on your body. Knowing the weak parts of your body and having a routine to take care of those is crucial in order to be able to perform well. Luckily, there are trucks with full workout rooms that follow the tour to every tournament and numerous recovery devices for the players and caddies.

• Even PGA Tour players hits bad shots- the difference is they are able to keep a good attitude and recover from those shots. Understanding that you will hit bad shots frees you up to try and do everything you can to hit a good shot and accepting that you might hit some that you do not plan on.

• Picking out proper targets is how you play good golf. Getting all the necessary factors that goes into a shot gives you the understanding of where the target should be. Once you know that, finding something to aim at is what you should focus on, rather than the trouble. Once you have that target with all the factors in mind will allow you to block out the trouble in your mind and focus on hitting the best shot you can.

Nothing that I learned was so profound that it will absolutely change my approach, as I have had great instruction through the years. Seeing that was very helpful. The things that I learned were more of the small things that are easy to forget about but can be game changers if done properly or improperly. It also showed me that I am on the right path and don’t have to change everything I am doing to get to the PGA Tour.

It was a great week that I was able to learn a lot from. I want to thank Tobias and the entire Jonnson family for allowing me to hang with them all week and caddy for him. It was very motivating to see what it takes to get there and makes me want to work even harder to get there myself. The PGA Tour is the dream and I cannot wait to get there.